Chapter 28: THE UNDOING OF FEAR

VI. The Secret Vows

1 Who punishes
the body is insane. For here the little gap is seen, and yet it is
not here. It has not judged itself, nor made itself to be what it is
not. It does not seek to make of pain a joy and look for lasting
pleasure in the dust. It does not tell you what its purpose is and
cannot understand what it is for. It does not victimize, because it
has no will, no preferences and no doubts. It does not wonder what it
is. And so it has no need to be competitive. It can be victimized,
but cannot feel itself as victim. It accepts no role, but does what
it is told, without attack.

2 It is indeed
a senseless point of view to hold responsible for sight a thing that
cannot see, and blame it for the sounds you do not like, although it
cannot hear. It suffers not the punishment you give because it has no
feeling. It behaves in ways you want, but never makes the choice. It
is not born and does not die. It can but follow aimlessly the path on
which it has been set. And if that path is changed, it walks as
easily another way. It takes no sides and judges not the road it
travels. It perceives no gap, because it does not hate. It can be
used for hate, but it cannot be hateful made thereby.

3 The thing
you hate and fear and loathe and want, the body does not know. You
send it forth to seek for separation and be separate. And then you
hate it, not for what it is, but for the uses you have made of it.
You shrink from what it sees and what it hears, and hate its frailty
and littleness. And you despise its acts, but not your own. It sees
and acts for you. It hears your voice. And it is frail and
little by your wish. It seems to punish you, and thus deserve your
hatred for the limitations that it brings to you. Yet you have made
of it a symbol for the limitations that you want your mind to have
and see and keep.

4 The body
represents the gap between the little bit of mind you call your own
and all the rest of what is really yours. You hate it, yet you think
it is your self, and that, without it, would your self be lost. This
is the secret vow that you have made with every brother who would
walk apart. This is the secret oath you take again, whenever you
perceive yourself attacked. No one can suffer if he does not see
himself attacked, and losing by attack. Unstated and unheard in
consciousness is every pledge to sickness. Yet it is a promise to
another to be hurt by him, and to attack him in return.

5 Sickness is
anger taken out upon the body, so that it will suffer pain. It is the
obvious effect of what was made in secret, in agreement with
another's secret wish to be apart from you, as you would be apart
from him. Unless you both agree that is your wish, it can have no
effects. Whoever says, "There is no gap between my mind and
yours" has kept God's promise, not his tiny oath to be
forever faithful unto death. And by his healing is his brother
healed.

6 Let this be
your agreement with each one; that you be one with him and not apart.
And he will keep the promise that you make with him, because it is
the one that he has made to God, as God has made to him. God keeps
His promises; His Son keeps his. In his creation did his Father say,
"You are beloved of Me and I of you forever. Be you perfect as
Myself, for you can never be apart from Me." His Son remembers
not that he replied "I will," though in that promise he was
born. Yet God reminds him of it every time he does not share a
promise to be sick, but lets his mind be healed and unified. His
secret vows are powerless before the Will of God, Whose promises he
shares. And what he substitutes is not his will, who has made promise
of himself to God.